Olaudah Equiano Slavery

Emily Costello

AFS 101 Reflection #1 Slavery is defined as being owned by another or as being someone’s property. The slave has to do as told by their owner and can be sold when they are no longer needed or wanted by their owner. There are many different reasons why people in Africa became slaves that may not be race-based. For example, captured by armies or slave hunters. In the reading for this chapter Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa who is an African, was kidnapped into slavery and put onto an unsafe slave ship. Olaudah Equiano lived in a part of Africa called Guinea. The women and men dress similar in this city because equality was important and women and men were not treated differently or shown differently by anyone. “The clothes

They are taught this in preparation to protect their community from kidnappers. “These kids climb up in a tree to look out for an attackers, while their parents are in the fields doing labor. Olaudah has experienced a time where he saw an intruder. He rang the alarm and certain men came and captured the intruder. He was safe, thankfully this time. Unfortunately, the next time he was not safe. Olaudah was with his sister one day in their house when their parents were out working and two men and a woman climbed over their walls and kidnapped them both. As explained in the book, Oulaudah said there was no way to scream or try to escape” (Bracey and Sinha 10-12). He was forced to be quiet and not to move by them closing his mouth and forcing his hands to be wrapped together. Olaudah was in protest and said “I did not eat anything but what they forced into my mouth” (Bracey and Sinha 12). Try thinking of enjoying the young teen years with your family one day, then the next being kidnapped when you thought you were safe in your house. The fact that Olaudah was trying to starve himself showed the fact that he would have rather died then to be a slave. Starving to death is probably one of the most painful ways to die. This is sickening and sad to read about. These slaves would rather die than be forced to live their life tortured. Young children are supposed to be surrounded by their family with

In my house or in my neighborhood, there is a minimal chance of me being taken. Unfortunately, Olaudah’s community always had that threat at every time of the day. Certain slaves had it worse than the ones that were semi-treated well. But no slave was seen as an equal to his owner. This is shameful because no human has the right to say he or she is better depending on his or her physical appearance or genes. By being a slave, one is stripped of their humanity. These slaves had to do what their owners wanted or they would be potentially killed. Teenagers today can barely even listen to their parents; there is no way a slave could just easily do whatever their owner wanted. I hope by people understanding what happened in the past, our world could make it a better future. There may not be full equality in the world today in different countries and continents or even states, but I hope one day there will be. I believe everyone is equal and no one should be treated this